The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for indicating a public restroom is in need of service. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for signaling to management or maintenance staff that a particular restroom is in need of service.
Many businesses provide public restrooms for their customers or patrons. These restrooms are often provided as a courtesy or may be required by local ordinance. Many businesses view their restrooms as an opportunity to increase a company""s goodwill amongst its customers and patrons. Businesses may feel providing a clean restroom in good working order will positively reflect on their business.
Restrooms, however, are prone to need maintenance for a variety of reasons. For example, supplies such as hand towels, hand soap, toilet paper and other items often dispensed in public restrooms can run out and need to be refilled. Other problems often occur in public restrooms which need maintenance such as plumbing backups and spills on the floor and the like. In addition, trash receptacles often become overflowed if not emptied often enough and create unsightly messes such as overflowing trash spilling onto the floors or counters in the restrooms.
Often when restroom patrons encounter a non-working or disorderly restroom, they are unlikely to approach a business employee about the problem in a restroom. Patrons may feel uncomfortable or embarrassed about discussing the subject of a disorderly restroom. Also, an employee may not be readily available at the time the patron is leaving the restroom. Thus, a problem in a restroom may be prolonged because it may not be reported.
Currently, in order to maintain the order and cleanliness of a restroom, the restroom facilities need to be inspected visually by an employee of the business often and on a regular basis. These constant inspections are intensive of limited human resources to businesses and are therefore expensive. In addition, at busy times, employees often are not able to take the time to inspect the restrooms, which increases the likelihood of the undesirable result of a restroom being in a disorderly or inoperative condition.
Among individual employees, inspection of restrooms may be a low priority and may be forgotten or overlooked. Thus, another problem exists in that employees may need to be reminded to regularly inspect the restrooms.
Even in situations where employees have the opportunity to inspect restrooms in a timely fashion, restroom maintenance problems are not particularly predictable and can arise at any time. For example, if an employee inspects a restroom once every two hours, it is possible that immediately after the inspection, a problem, such as a spill on the floor or a plumbing problem, can arise soon after the inspection, thus leaving the restroom in an disorderly or an inoperative condition until the next inspection.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method and apparatus to alert management or maintenance staff that a restroom is in need of maintenance. It may also be desirable to provide a method and apparatus for allowing a restroom patron to alert a business employer that a restroom is in need of service in an anonymous way. If a patron can anonymously alert employees a restroom is in need of service, it may be more likely that they will alert employees a restroom needs service. Preferably, the method and apparatus may be capable of alerting management soon after a problem in the restroom is detected, not necessarily by an employee of the business, but perhaps by a patron or customer. If the problem is quickly detected, the problem can be quickly corrected and the restroom can be restored to order.
It is also desirable to provide a method and apparatus to remind business employees to inspect restrooms to ensure cleanliness and order. It may be desirable to provide an indication for a periodic check of the restroom.
It is therefore a feature and advantage of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for alerting management or maintenance staff of a company that one of its restrooms is need of service. It is another feature and advantage of the present invention to provide a method for reminding maintenance staff or management of a business that a restroom needs to be inspected to determine if it is in need of service. The above and other features and advantages are achieved through the use of a novel method and apparatus as herein disclosed.
In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a restroom maintenance alert system is provided. The system comprises a signaling device and an actuator located in a public restroom and configured to communicate with the signaling device to activate the signaling device. The system further includes instructions located at least proximate to the actuator, that direct a restroom patron to actuate the actuator if the restroom needs service. The signaling device is located outside the public restroom. In some embodiments of the invention, a timing device that periodically activates the signaling device for reminding employees to inspect a restroom is provided as a part of the system.
In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, a restroom maintenance alert system is provided. The system comprises means for signaling located outside a public restroom, and means located in the public restroom for actuating the signaling means. The system further includes means for instructing a restroom patron to actuate the actuating means if the restroom needs service, the instructing means located at least proximate the actuating means. In some embodiments of the invention, timing means for periodically activating the signaling means for reminding employees to inspect a restroom is provided as a part of the system.
In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, a method for signaling that a restroom needs service is provided. The method comprises the steps of providing an actuator in a restroom, instructing a restroom patron to actuate the actuator if the restroom needs service, and activating a signaling device located outside the restroom when the actuator is actuated. In some embodiments of the invention, the method may also include activating the signaling device at regular intervals to remind employees to inspect restrooms.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are, of course, additional features of the invention that will be described below and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein, as well as the abstract, are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception upon which this disclosure is based may readily be utilized as a basis for the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present invention. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent constructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.